Kitchen Scrap Gardening

I bought a leek for a second batch of colcannon.  Over a dollar for a single leek.  Sure, it was organic, but that isn't much of an excuse.  Green onions have gotten expensive too, as have various other bits of produce that I would rather not try to grow from seed.

But seed isn't the only way to grow plants.  Sometimes a bit of root is plenty to grow an entire new plant *cough* mint *cough*.  And who hasn't tried to grow an avocado tree from a pit?  Garlic is always sprouting on me.

I watched a few videos and realized it's very simple to turn many ends of vegetables that are commonly thrown away into garden items that will produce for months.

I started with the "golden" leek.  When it was time to use it, I saved the bottom inch, including a very nice root system.  It went into a jelly jar with water and the jar went into the greenhouse window.  That's it.  One minute of work.  A week in the water, the leek had regrown and the roots were strong again.  Time to put it in the Pond.

Up next was celery and green onions, after a batch of tuna salad.  The green onions were the same process as the leek.  The celery was even easier.  Save the bottom two inches of the stalk, the part that cuts into a pretty rose pattern.  Stick it in damp soil butt-side down and give it a week or so to create a root system.  It won't sprout overnight like the onions.  You'll start to see the inner hearts grow in a couple of weeks.  Beats four months waiting for seedlings to get to that point!

Alliums (onions, garlic) and root vegetables like sprouting potatoes are the obvious items to regrow.  I'm not doing potatoes because I don't want Molly getting curious and nibbling on the leaves, which are toxic. She has a natural aversion to onions, so I'm not concerned about that.

You can also buy "living" lettuces and herbs at the market that still have roots attached.  They do cost more than regular versions, but an extra 50¢ might get you a head of lettuce that can live in a bowl of water for weeks and produce twice as many salads as an ordinary piece before bolting.  I've planted Living herbs before in window pots and managed to keep them alive for several months, far extending their shelf life.

This approach isn't only for people with a large garden.  Even an apartment balcony is large enough for half-gallon pots of regrown onions or gallons for potatoes.  Little herb pots can go in any window, inside or out.  So what if you forget to water them and they die; you were going to throw out that part anyway.  It's a fun little experiment that might save you money down the road.